Leonid (Leo) Mujiri
On the Road
October 7-28, 2010
On October 7 the Open Gallery hosted the opening of Leonid (Leo) Mujiri’s photo exhibition. This is Leo’s first solo exhibition after his return from London, UK where he lived and studied photography for the last four years. All the works presented in the show were made within the first month after his return to Georgia. The images displayed were made along the roads to Mtskheta and Kakheti. This journey as seen through Leo’s lenses conjures up, in a romanticized and at times humorous manner, a passageway between two epochs of soviet and post- soviet Georgia.
Images of abandoned gas stations, disused electric posts and heaps of glass shards represent the industrial waste left by the soviet era and are regarded differently by the old and new generations. In Leo’s photographs these various, no longer functional objects resemble a surrealist collage which makes one wonder whether or not they belong in a museum.
A keen taste and sense of humor are revealed in the photographs depicting the attempts at self-promotion by independent entrepreneurs wishing to fit in with the market economy. The roadside displays advertising concrete blocks, ceramic tiles, stone railings and vulcanization are depicted from such a vantage point that one becomes mindful of the poetic nature of their authors.
These photographs indicate the new generation’s distinct view of a country in a transition between two ages. Objects which can be seen as leftovers from the soviet era by those who have experienced it, are perceived as relics of Georgia’s recent history by those who have not and it is necessary to preserve these objects if not in “flesh” then at least in a photographic archive.
For additional information please contact Ani Riaboshenko, National Arts and Culture Program Coordinator, at .
Open Gallery is a not-for-profit art gallery housed at the Open Society Georgia Foundation that provides opportunities for dissemination and visibility to emerging and independent artists who do not currently have gallery representation.
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